


Luminous

by darlathecyborgpluviophile



Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Crushes, Dancing, Drunk Shenanigans, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, all of AVALANCHE, bed sharing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-02
Updated: 2018-05-02
Packaged: 2019-05-01 05:39:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14513718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darlathecyborgpluviophile/pseuds/darlathecyborgpluviophile
Summary: Tifa doesn’t think she’s ever been this close to anyone, before. Not like this.





	Luminous

**Author's Note:**

> For Tifa Appreciation Week, Day 3- Favorite Relationship. There needs to be more F/F in the world.

Tifa’s seen a lot of things in her time, especially around alcohol.

It comes from living in a rural village for most of her adolescence, where holidays and the like were often celebrated by all the adults she knew coming together at the only pub in town. It comes from living in the big, dark, threatening city of Midgar for years and years, watching the local drunks in the area get into fights and at least once having to break up an assault on a girl several years younger than herself. When she finally opened her own bar she tried to keep it all mostly civilized—throwing out the troublemakers, instating curfews on her more frequent customers, sometimes even going so far as to escort someone completely wasted to their home, as long as they lived in the neighborhood.

So when Aerith, in a fit of drink-induced enthusiasm, decides to get up on the table the party’s sitting at, Tifa doesn’t try to stop her. She doesn’t even really think much of it in the first place, except for a quick _for the love of God, don’t kill yourself_.

“Whew! God, y’re all so tiny!” she exclaims, breaking into a fit of giggles shortly after.

Her boots are thick and heavy, _clunking_ solidly on the table every time she moves. She’s a hair’s breadth away from stomping on Barret’s fingers when he yanks them away, rubbing the knuckles as if they actually had been injured.

“Whoop…sorry ‘bout that!” Aerith grins sheepishly, a bright blush smattered across her cheeks. A second later she’s hopping on one foot, trying to untie the laces and get her boots off to avoid hurting anyone else. It’s a sweet sentiment, but at this rate she’ll fall off the table and onto one of their friends, knocking both of them out cold.

“Aerith,” Tifa says, standing, mom-friend instincts kicking in. “Aerith, do you need help?”

She stops desperately balancing on one leg, swaying back and forth, and instead reaches out to grab Tifa’s shoulders.

Tifa, meanwhile, reaches down to finish untying the laces on the boots, and waits as Aerith carefully lifts her feet out of them and onto the wood. Even just from doing that, the girl’s a bit winded.

“Ah…that’sss…so much better…”

Aerith hasn’t let go of Tifa’s shoulders yet, and with nothing else to focus on, it’s the first time she realizes how _close_ the drunken girl is.

Tifa doesn’t think she’s ever been this close to anyone, before. Not like this. And there’s a lot to appreciate about Aerith—her bubbly, borderline-troublemaking spirit, her sense of humor, those eyes, _god_ , those beautiful, luminous green eyes, dare she say more beautiful than Cloud’s. She’s crossed paths with so many people, seen so many faces come into her life and leave again that Tifa recognizes the wrinkled crow’s feet that show up at the corners of those eyes whenever Aerith smiles are going to stay with her, grow with her, until they’re permanently etched onto her face in old age. There’s even a slight shimmer to her lips, which Tifa dismisses as a trick of the lighting because there cannot _possibly_ be a way that she managed to smuggle a tube of lip gloss all the way from Midgar to here.

Aerith finally rights herself, standing straight and tall on the table. With the other girl gone Tifa realizes just how hot her face feels, and takes a long sip of her miraculously unspilled whiskey sour in an effort to hide it.

But apparently wonders never cease, because not a moment later Aerith becomes a blur of pink and red.

She’s dancing, _on the damn table_ , to the music that has been playing endlessly since they got to Cosmo Canyon. Since their discussions with the village Elders began Tifa has learned to tune it out, but now it’s brought to the forefront. The pounding of distant drums, driving melodies blown through hollowed Dual Horn tusks, the crash of tambourines and wistful, tinkling chimes blown in through the pub’s front door with the nighttime breeze.

It’s not fancy, and by all accounts Aerith clearly has no professional skill in this. She’s swaying with the rhythm, shuffling her feet a bit, taking up a spin whenever the music reaches a crescendo. She snaps her fingers occasionally, waves her arms, lets her iron bangles clink together. Only about half the party cares—Cait Sith and Nanaki are too absorbed in a conversation, Barret’s leaning back with his beer and bemusedly watching the performance, Yuffie’s god knows where. The only other person interested in the display is Cloud, but even that proves to be a generous description as he seems to have developed a sudden fascination with stirring his drink.

Tifa’s entranced by the display. She’s not sure why—maybe she’s had too much to drink herself, or maybe the little crush she’s not willing to admit she has is sinking roots into her heart. Maybe the Cetra have always been known to imbue their innate magic into dance.

Aerith leans down and grasps Tifa’s shoulders once more, unexpectedly. She startles at this, shaken out of the hold of Aerith’s spell, but then there’s breathy, slurred words right by her ear, saying, “C’mon, Tifa! Letsss dance!”

That gets Cloud’s attention, and he looks up from his fruity, blue cocktail to see what’s happening. Tifa couldn’t be more mortified at the thought of joining in on this, especially with her, especially with people _watching_ , but…

“Wait, wait, _wait_ —Aerith, I gotta get off—my _shoes_ —“

Then she’s standing, shoeless, on the round, wooden table in the Cosmo Candle. Aerith’s pressed up close against her left side, warm and soft and solid and _ethereal_ , a mess of contradictions, clasping her hands tight.

“Don’t let go,” she whispers, in a moment of unfiltered clarity.

And they _dance_.

It’s a silly, fitful, giggly experience. None of it makes any sense—they’re barely following the rhythm of the melodies outside at this point, and have not a lick of talent between them. By God, it’s the most fun Tifa’s had in too long of a time. They’re both smiling, these bright, beaming things that make their cheeks hurt, and they shuffle together, against each other, in each other’s arms across the surface of the table. It’s a good thing that everyone picked up their drinks as soon as the two of them wound up there.

After two or three songs together, Aerith’s a bit spent.

She winds up with her head resting gently on Tifa’s shoulder, with Tifa’s arms around her waist and the two of them gently swaying back and forth.

“Aerith,” Tifa whispers. “Aerith.”

“Mmm?”

“I think we should go up to the room.”

Aerith makes a soft noise in the affirmative, but burrows a bit deeper into her companion. Tifa laughs, and manages to make eye contact with Cloud so he can help them both get off the table together.

The climb up to the hotel room they’re staying in is, in all honesty, kind of a chore with a fully-grown woman hanging off her side, but Tifa doesn’t mind it. They manage to unlock their door and stumble to the nearest bed in the room without incident.

Once parked on something soft, Aerith goes down easily. When she falls against her bedding, the softest of giggles escapes her before she goes completely quiet.

Tifa lingers, sitting on the corner of the bed. She’s just getting up when Aerith’s face crumples, upset.

“Don’t.”

Her eyes are still closed.

Tifa huffs a little. “Our things are downstairs.”

“Someone’ll bring ‘em up. W’have…nice friends.”

“Aerith…”

A hand reaches out and grabs hers, just like on the table. Then, in a voice barely above a whisper: “I just don’t want to be alone anymore.”

What do they even really have, down there? Their shoes? Is there anything they really need from the Buggy tonight?

Tifa shifts, and Aerith with her. They find room for each other on the bed, burrowing underneath the thick blankets and clean sheets.

“It’ll be okay,” she whispers, slinging a muscled arm around Aerith’s waist, just like when they were dancing. “You’re never really alone.”

Aerith nods, and drifts off faster than Tifa’s ever seen her. She’s left alone in the half-dark of the rented room, finding it a challenge to get to sleep herself.

After the warm glow that has permeated the evening, reality seems to sink into her like falling rain; slowly, a little bit at a time.

They’re all homeless. Most of them are fugitives. They have to fight for their life from day to day, with barely the Gil to spend on curatives and equipment. Cloud’s still acting so, so strange. Someone’s going to catch up to them at some point, whether Shin-Ra or Sephiroth, and she’s not entirely sure they’ll be prepared when they do.

But it’s quiet, and it’s still, and tonight is something Tifa can firmly call one of the high points of the journey. This is why she fights—for the moments like these, the unexpected feelings of warmth, and home, and safety, and happiness apart from the harsh world out there. She fights for Aerith, and for Cloud, and for Barret, and Marlene and everyone else she knows, and in the end, that’s enough.

She closes her eyes, and follows her companion into sleep.


End file.
